Sweet Home Ohio
by collections
Summary: Top Seattle cardiac surgeon, April Kepner suddenly finds herself engaged to the city's most eligible bachelor, Jackson Avery. But her past holds her back from moving any further in her new city life. She finds herself left with only one option: return to Moline, Ohio and set things straight. Based off of Sweet Home Alabama film. Japril/Mapril.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I am a HUGE Japril fan, and I tried so hard to make this work with Japril. But it fits PERFECTLY with Mapril. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, content, or locations.

Do you ever find yourself in your past? Even for a few seconds? My day to day life doesn't give me much time to think about anything other than my patients. But when I take a second, and close my eyes, I'm there.

I can smell mama's home cooked food, and see daddy coming in from the fields of our farm. I hear Kimmie and Alice giggling as they run down the hall, and Libby yelling at them to be quiet as she does her make-up for the fourth time in one day. And most importantly, there's him. I see him running in front of me as we race to our front farm gates and back when we were six. I hear him knocking on our front door with flowers as he picks me up for the homecoming dance. And I smell his cologne when we're together for the last time. The thoughts come back in floods, and I'm seconds away from drowning.

Then a knock pulls me to the surface, and my eyes shoot open. I'm back in the on-call room at the hospital. Alone.

"Dr. Kepner?" A timid voice from behind the door speaks, "I'm sorry to bother you, but Mr. Rue needs a central line... and I've never done one." I groan. Usually, I'm all for helping interns become better surgeons, and overall doctors. But not when I've been on my feet for 18 hours. In seconds, I'm up, pulling on my surgical coat and opening the door with a huff.

"Really Helm? Don't you have a resident for this?" I bark as I walk down the hallway, waiting for her to catch up. I enter Mr. Michael Rue's room, and like a precision machine, I grab a pair of latex gloves and pull them on in the time it takes me to get from the door to his bedside. "Alright, Mr. Rue, I'm going to go ahead and start a central line for you, so we can get some medicine in you quickly."

It takes me less than five minutes to get the line in and going with his current medication. I run him over with what to expect, letting him know I'd be back soon to check on him, and to get some rest. As I exit the room, my bedside manner evaporates and I turn to face my intern at the nurses station.

"Keep an eye on Mr. Rue, and next time you wake me for something small, be prepared for 2 months of scut. Now go find your resident, and bug _them_ ," I snark at her. With a nod, she quickly hurries away. I sigh, turning to the nurses station, deciding to feel bad tomorrow. I'm to tired to care about being nice to interns. I run my fingers through my auburn hair and debate closing my eyes and taking a nap standing up.

"Hey, you okay?" I hear my best friend's voice and turn to face her. Arizona Robbins was the first and best friend I made once I came to Seattle. She can tell my mood as soon as she walks in the room.

"Just tired," I sighed as I stood up, starting to walk with her. "I need coffee to help me get through this shift. Especially with incompetent interns like mine."

"Ape, I've seen you run circles around this place for twenty-six hours straight and you were still bright and chipper. What's really going on?" Her knowing me so well only adds more aggravation to my situation.

"I have an event to go to tomorrow evening. With Jackson. And his mother," I respond as we get to the coffee cart. Jackson is my boyfriend for about a year. I met him shortly after I took my attending position at Seattle Grace. He's kind, gentle, handsome, confident, stable... and he's also an _Avery._ As in Harper Avery's grandson. His entire family is involved with the Harper Avery Foundation, which means press, conferences, galas, awards, the whole nine yards. And when you've spent your entire life practically invisible, it's not always so simple to jump ship.

"And you're not wanting to go with your extremely attractive boyfriend and his mother to one of the biggest medical conferences, because...?" Arizona's voice trailed off as I ordered my coffee and paid.

"Look, Jackson is great. And Catherine..." my own voice trailed off as I thought of his mother. She was the entire embodiment of what strong, successful, empowering women stood for. But with great roles comes great responsibility, and even greater demeanor. "Catherine is great. I just don't think I fit into their kind of lifestyle." I shrugged as I moved to the side of the coffee cart, mixing in creamer and a little bit of sugar.

"You don't think you fit into their lifestyle?" Arizona repeated as she moved closer to me. "April, you are dating the most eligible bachelor in Seattle. You two are great together, you guys just... click!"

"Calm down, Arizona!" I chuckled softly as I sipped my coffee, walking from the cart with her. "I never said I was breaking up with him. Jackson is great, and wonderful. And he cooks amazing, and he enjoys doing simple things with me. It's just... I don't know, I thought I would have kids by now. Have a family. Or at least be married..." my voice trailed off at that last statement.

"And you think Jackson isn't able to give you those things?" Arizona asked, putting her hands in her front pockets.

"You said it yourself. He's Seattle's most eligible bachelor. He's born into the Avery family, the lifestyle. He was raised, bred for it. And I was born to be ordinary..." a loud beeping stopped us in our tracks as we reached down for our pagers.

"It's me, I need to check on the Sanderson baby," Arizona spoke as she shoved the pager back into her pocket. "Listen to me quick, you are a surgeon. You have been through so much, and you are anything but ordinary. I love you, call me later, okay?" She said as she took off quickly through the halls to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I sighed, letting Arizona's words linger in my head. Defeated, and still exhausted, I made my way to the on-call room to at least sit. I fell onto the couch, throwing my feet up when my pager started to ping off. I groaned, pulling it out and reading I was needed in the pit. Maybe I could just stay in this hospital for the rest of my life.


	2. Chapter 2

It's close to midnight when I finally end my shift and leave the hospital. I'm off for the next couple of days to allow myself to catch up on sleep, laundry, and errands. The closest thing I will ever get to a vacation.

I can barely keep my eyes open as I fumble with my keys, trying to unlock my small one bedroom apartment. But as soon as the lock gives, and the door opens, my eyes are greeted with a sea of color. My small 800 square foot apartment is covered in vases of flower arrangements. Roses of numerous colors, tulips, peonies, and my favorite flower of all: sunflowers. And if there was any area not covered by vases, there were red rose petals sprinkled over the couches and walking areas.

"What in the world?" I softly mumble out, a smile of amazement on my face. As I'm swinging the door close behind me, I see the white card sticking out from the arrangement on the coffee table. The most beautiful calligraphy spells out my name on the front. I set my bag and keys down on the entrance table, grabbing the card and carefully tearing it open.

'April -

I hope this surprise brought a smile to your beautiful face.

Enjoy your time off to rest, and I will see you tomorrow.

I love you.

Yours, Jackson A.'

The letter becomes blurry as tears wallow up in my eyes. It's not my birthday, our anniversary, or a holiday. It's just a Tuesday. I pull out my phone, and scroll through my favorites list. I click on Jackson's name, knowing he's on the schedule to work at the hospital tonight. As I fall back onto the couch, rose petals bounce up and cascade around me.

"Hello?" His silky, cool voice comes over the phone. I've talked to him hundreds of times over the phone, and yet, he never fails to give me butterflies every time.

"I love you. These flowers are absolutely beautiful, Jackson," I gush to him, looking over the arrays of colorful flowers.

"So I take it you're surprised?" he asks and I can hear the smirk in his voice. While I usually want to challenge his confident persona, this time I have to let him win.

"Surprised? Jackson, I'm completely astonished! How in the world did you get all these? Especially the sunflowers, it's not even summer yet!" My eyes are still scanning the room, seeing flowers in places I didn't see before. Behind picture frames, on top of the entertainment center, even in the empty spaces of my bookshelf.

"Well I remembered you saying that sunflowers were your favorite flowers, so I knew I had to have those for you." My mind quickly scans through its files to remember when that conversation was. It was around Christmas time, when we were snowed in and talking about summer.

"Jackson, that was months ago, you really remembered that?"

"When you speak, I listen," he replied warmly, and the butterflies flared up again.

"You are perfect, Jackson Avery," I replied. And he really was. Jackson had no flaws, or at least in my eyes he didn't. He was calm, collected, handsome, smart, and all around confident. The apple didn't really fall far from the tree.

"I certainly try," he chuckled. "I know you're probably tired, get some rest, love. I'm going to stay a couple hours here, see what I can help with. And then I will see your beautiful self tomorrow night, 5pm."

"5pm?" I asked as I thought about the medical conference. "I thought it started at 7?"

"It does, but we have to be there early. You know, press and stuff," he said, then his voice got lower as it was clear he was talking to someone at the hospital about a patient. Suddenly, the butterflies started to flutter away. I loved Jackson, but the spotlight didn't make me want to jump for joy.

"Hey listen babe, I got to go," his voice snapped me back to reality. "I'll see you tomorrow, get some rest beautiful. I love you."

"Love you, too," I smiled as I hung up the phone. It was true, I really did love him. Being with Jackson was unlike anything I had ever felt. But I guess when you find something as amazing as that, you have to take the good with the bad.

Huffing myself up from the couch, I picked my favorite arrangements and sat them on the table. I decided I would deal with the rest of the flowers tomorrow, making a mental note to donate some to the hospital. All I could think about was my bed.


End file.
